PONDERING

After three days, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, sitting among the elders, listening to them and asking them questions.   And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.  When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son. Why have you treated us like this?  Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”   Jesus said to them, “Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  But they did not understand….And his mother

Henry O. Tanner 1898

pondered all these things in her heart.  ^{Lk 2: 46-50}

“And she pondered all this in her heart.”  In Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s Dangerous Memories she says in Greek, symballein, ‘to ponder’ means to puzzle out their meaning, to toss things together until they make sense.  Now, we’ve been doing a lot of collective pondering this last month.  What is God trying to tell us?  Advent is fast approaching and that is a time of waiting, preparing and pondering the great mystery of God-with-us.    And, like it or not, that is what our entire life is like:  waiting, preparing, pondering what God’s plan is for us.   We can puzzle all we want, but in the end, the best we can do is step out in faith and trust in God’s loving mercy.  Not blind faith, which asks no questions, but true faith which comes with lots of doubts and questions yet filled with hope and trust that God-is-with-us. 

Ven. M. Celeste went through many difficulties in her life; nevertheless, she pondered the Plan of the Father, fixed her gaze on her Beloved and proceeded live as a constant reminder of all that the Father accomplished in Christ for our salvation.  We are called to do the same.  With Celeste, with Mary, we ponder the very heart of the mystery of Redemptive love and, with thankful hearts, live God’s plan of love in the Church and for the world.